'Night Forever More'

Sunday morning, 9 April 2006.

In the serenity of the kitchen, we talked. I told a friend of my aunt's that no, she didn't see me at the service that morning, 'cause I had overslept but yea, how was the service anyways?. Mum had reminded me to pass this person all the necessary keys right before leaving with a relative. After a while, another friend of my aunt's dropped by, and queer it was for me then, partaking in an actual exchange of dialogue at the table, with them. Nodding and frowning in between my sips of instant coffee: my existence as a discerning listener, a first timer in this thing so alien and strange. Fortunately, it was the most natural thing for them: they kept the flow of information perpetually in motion and so, there were no moments where instances of uncomfortable silence were felt by yours truly; that I was not subjected to saying something just to relieve myself of the aforementioned. We talked about the pastor who had committed suicide in Ipoh a few days earlier, after being an illegal loan shark guarantor for four of his church members, who then split on him. What was fact and fiction were so blurred after the kitchen-table discussion, for me. His daughter wasn't as old as what the newspapers wrote. One of them even said that it was possible that he was involved with the taking up of illegal loans himself, as he was a well known Tentmaker for the Christian ministry, which were unfortunately operating and maintained with costs too high. Gossips can be so cruel, I thought, then. The news had passed through too many people; each adding their own sweet and sour to the mix.

Sunday night, 9 April 2006.

I dreamt of boxes. In each box there was a scene of violence, which I soon recognized to be screens of television sets, numerous and arranged on shelves; like books in a library. I was watching them, as a collective and then, curtains were drawn over each screen: stage curtains, red like blood, and velvet. Then the shelves weren't shelves anymore; they were rooms. And a person had to visit each room, and be subjected to what were in the rooms. I remember motion in liquid mercury likeness: indiscernible; the person was tumbling or perhaps thrown around in the room by a great force. And in the confusion, there was blood; their forms many. And I knew that that person had to visit all the other rooms as well, regardless of his condition: he would be sustaining injuries as he traveled from room to room, but then I left, with this horrible knowledge in mind.

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